August 23, 2010

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that to unify, to take back from the Persians, to take back whatever he could and then at some point once he passed that boundary he was on a, on this “I’m going to conquer and take all” and of course you know all the stories of all the Alexandria’s that starting popping up everywhere. It was going to be, you know if Alexander would not have had too much to drink and killed himself with liquor we probably would be living in Alexandria because he, he took over the world, his conquest. But it was to unify, the first initial was to unify the people.

When he came through in his brief descent through that country, he issued a decree and this is something that becomes very important later on for historical purposes. He issues a decree and remember, this area that he’s coming down through after they cross the Hellespont and they come down is primarily and predominantly pagan. But Smyrna had a very large Jewish community. He issued a decree saying that they could live in what was called insonomia, not insomnia, insonomia which means in their law, they had the freedom to practice their religion which is very strange that Alexander the Great did that. Nevertheless, his decree makes Smyrna flourish with a very large Jewish population. Now, that will become relevant when we move on. But other things happen along the way.

Now let me kind of just pretend you’re not here and transport your mind for a minute. If you were to approach Smyrna at this point you would, back in the day, you would, if you were a tourist you’d say, “Take me to the most famous place” you’d end up on something called the Golden Street, the most famous street of all. Analogous maybe like Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive where all the boutiques are, this had all the cult temples. You could walk down the golden street and have a temple to Zeus over here, Apollo over there, Aphrodite over there, just continue, continue, continue until you reach the top of the Acropolis, the top of Mount Pagos. Five hundred feet looking down over this beautiful crystal clear blue harbor, strikingly beautiful if you’ve ever been there, it, it still is beautiful, just looks different. I’m sure it looks nothing like what I’ve just described because there’s very little left of what was originally there.

August 17, 2010

You have, you can jot these down and check them out. You have, I made notes of them, in Haggai, I believe it’s Haggai 1:13, where he says the “messenger.” Haggai 1:13, “Then spake Haggai the LORD’S messenger,” aggelo. So you can see it’s interchangeable. You’ve got references like that in Malachi Malachi’s name, which in the Hebrew, malak, ‘angel,’ ‘messenger’ and he even delivers a message and says he’s a ‘messenger.’ “Out of the priest’s lips” the message, the ‘messenger’ will speak, aggelo. So I’m trying to make the case this is not some. Okay? It’s not that kind, all right? That’s number one. Number two, ekklesia. I have to do this before we go forwards because otherwise we end up trying to fight what certain things might mean.

This one, you old timers all know about this word I’m going to do this for the sake of the new people: ekklesia; prefix, ek, and klesia, kleo, actually ‘out from among,’ ‘called out’ people. Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the word I had you circle, ‘assembly,’ in Acts, what you have happen there, if you go back to Matthew 16:18 you’ll, just jot it down and read it at home, when Jesus says “I’ll build my ekklesia and the gates of hades shall not prevail or overcome it,” what you have is the first use in the New Testament of ekklesia, referring to what Jesus had in mind, which by the way we’re conditioned that the ekklesia is the ‘out called ones’ which make up the Church, which is true, but if you think of the Second Coming it even emphasizes that more so. We will be the ‘out called ones’ when He comes again to take His Church, so it has a double meaning on there.

But you go back to look at the use through the Bible, and you’ll see by the time we reach the book of Acts the term is being used generically for ‘assembly,’ and no specificity is until, probably, at least after the first century, going into the second century, this word becomes a stamp on the Church. But for the sake of conversation while I’m doing this, lest anybody take this word and say we know from this our words where we get Spanish, iglesia; French, eglise from this word, but lest anybody say that this word and its use start in the New Testament, you look into the Septuagint and you’ll find in Exodus 3:4 when God is calling to Moses, to the bush, when He’s calling him, and He calls to him, He called him ‘out,’ He ekkelessened, He ‘out called’ him. The application goes way back.

You look at this word, aggelo. Our English ‘angel,’ and we talked about this briefly, the ‘angel.’ There are 77 times in the book of Revelation that this word is going to be used 77 in one small little book. That’s an awful lot. We’re only concerned right now with eight of them, the one that occurred in chapter 1, verse 20, and the seven addresses to the Church where to each one it says ‘and to the angel of this Church, and to the angel of that Church.’ The angels of the Church are the pastors; they are the communicators. They are not celestial beings, and I can make a good case for this. I feel like I’m going to anyway, so I might as well.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that if people that interpret Scripture and they want to say that these are angels in the Church, the only place where you read in the Bible of an angel that is sent to govern or protect is in the book of Daniel. Other than that, you have other references. Now I’m going to say that for the most part, we’ll say 90 some percent of the references to, to this word in the entire Bible are communicators of God’s Word and they may be like, for example in I believe it’s Matthew 1:20 when the angel comes and speaks to Joseph in a dream about the Child Mary’s going to have. That is the angel sent by God, aggelo. The angel that spoke to Mary, Gabriel, which is named by name in Luke 1:26, that angel, aggelo. It’s a reoccurring theme.

For the most part they are messengers of God, and then you’ve got that little percentage on the end which is the copycat Satan that comes along. Of course, he was the original one in the beginning that when he fell took a third of heaven with him. We’ll encounter those angels in the book of Revelation too, but right now we’re talking about terrestrial real beings, not celestial beings that are the pastors, messengers of the Church. And the irony, you can go through the Septuagint, I don’t think I brought mine, but you can go through the Septuagint you’ll see the Septuagint, which is the Hebrew translated into the Greek, Old Testament with Apocrypha, you’ll find that every time the word ‘angel’ is used you’re going to read ‘messenger’ or ‘angel’ interchangeably.

August 12, 2010

What is so easily dismissed as we read the Bible, and we seldom oh, you hear it now and again, the price that was paid to get the Book. Well, look at the price that was paid to set up the Church, and the complete ignorance everything that Paul had to, every hurdle he had to encounter, we’re just going to take a little glimpse of it in the 19th chapter of the book of Acts very quickly.

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that starting at verse 1, “It came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: finding certain disciples.” Now listen, these are supposedly disciples. Listen! “He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? They said unto him, We’ve not heard of such a thing whether there be any Holy Ghost.” These are supposedly disciples. “And he said unto them, Unto what were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.” Get the frame of reference, and I’m going to build on this as we go.

The first thing he encounters are disciples that are not really disciples because if they were they would have been already Christ’s followers. They’re still in the Judaic frame of reference, John’s baptism. “Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

When Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, they began to speak in tongues, and prophesied. The men, about twelve.” Notice, and it’s not a, it’s not a mistake. We have the reoccurring numbers again, twelve. I’m sure that these people that he baptized become an integral part of the growing Church that will be, but ‘twelve’ is not, it’s not a mistake. “And he went into the synagogue, spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.”

Now if you have taken a look at Paul, you’ll know that probably he did a little bit more than “disputing and persuading” because he could be all things to all men. He probably won an awful lot of people to Christ, and I don’t like to use that word, though I just said it, but with the mindset that he’s fighting, all the odds are against him.

August 5, 2010

But He became dead, which means it was not natural to Him that He should suffer this. It’s subtle, but it makes a big difference in how we read it. He says “I am the living one, I became dead; and, behold, I’m living.” “I became dead, became necros, where we get our words for ‘necros, the words used in pathology and things like that. Dead, “I became dead and, behold, idou, that word we looked at last week, “Behold, living I am into the ages of ages.” Stop right there.

You want to confirm if Christ is talking, only Christ could say “I’m the living and I became dead. And I am living into the ages and ages.” Only Christ could say that. If you’re not sure about who’s speaking now, it’s time to wake up. Jesus is talking. He’s the only one that could do this, the only one on the page or scene or anywhere at any time that could say this and it be true.

And He’s appearing before John now: “I am living, I became dead; now I am alive into the ages and ages. And I have the keys of death, and the keys of death, and of Hades.” Now, If you have the keys to something, means you have access, authority. The King James switched the words around and they put “I have the keys of hell and death.”

Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that there’s no, in the original, there’s no “Amen.” It doesn’t matter. ‘Amen’ is a good thing; I like ‘Amen’ but it’s not in there. “I have the keys of death and Hades.” He doesn’t say Gehenna and He doesn’t say ‘Hell, and there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of subtleties of why this word was used. Now let me say this, if He has the keys to death and Hades He doesn’t need the key to anything else. He has the keys to the seen world and the unseen world. And what’s so bizarre is what we think is real or seeable or tangible or whatever it is, it is not because in the realm that He’s seeing, He is not only in control of this world where we can’t see Him, but when we get to the unseen world, when we get there, we will see Him.

If that makes any sense to you at all, it’s like a reverse of things, and that He has the keys to these has to tell you one thing. Again, it’s a theological nightmare, and I’m sure a lot of people will just go, “Arrg gh gh!